The Clerk’s Tale is a story about a King, who is told he must marry. He gets to choose his wife and he chooses a woman named Griselda, after getting permission from her father. After the two are wed soon after Griselda has a baby. This is where the story gets interesting. The King wants to make sure his wife is loyal so he puts her through tests. The King has someone come take the infant child and as Griselda is told, to kill the child. This is all to see if Griselda will still love him. 4 years later Griselda bears a son. When the boy is 2 years old the King thinks he needs to test his wife’s loyalty again. Someone comes to take their son and kill him too. Griselda still said nothing against her husband, the King.
When the daughter is 12 and the son 7 the King thinks it’s time to put his wife through one more test. He tells her that he is going to divorce her and marry someone else. Griselda, still obeying her now ex-husband, is sad but just walk away to go live with her father again. She does give a big loving speech to her husband as she is leaving though. When the wedding is coming he brings back his children, who are not dead, but doesn't tell anyone that they are his children. The King asks Griselda to help his new wife get ready for the ceremony; the new wife to be is her daughter, whom she doesn't recognize. When the King realizes that her could do anything to Griselda and she would take it with graciousness her confesses everything. He tells her that the “wife” is her daughter and the girl’s brother is her son. She was not even mad that it was all a hoax. They all live “happily ever after” and after the King dies, the son takes the throne.
Annotated Bibliography:
Raby, Michael.“The Clerk’s Tale and the Forces of Habit” The Chaucer Review, 47.3, (2013): 223-246.Project Muse.Web. 15 Oct. 2014
This article talks about how the characters in The Clerk's Tale act and how this works with their character. The article states "The Clerk explores the ambivalence through the diptych of Griselda, who cultivates the habit of fortitude, and Walter, who finds himself entangled in cupidity strengthened by habit."(pg 6) The author is saying that Griselda is in pain when loosing her children but does not show it, to prove to her husband. Where because he is the King, her husband thinks that he can do whatever he wants with no consequences. Griselda did not grow up in a place like the palace. But as she has been there she has seemed to have taken "the shape" of it. She is told to act a certain way, but if not for being there she may not do as she is told.
Finlayson, John. “Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Chaucer’s “Clerk’s Tale”" Studies in Philology 97.3 (2000): 255-75. JSTOR. Web. 15 Oct.2014
I chose this article because I wanted to read about Griselda. How she is actually from another author. But Chaucer did not even know that when writing about her, or that is what some people think, others think that he did know though. This article talks about Boccaccio's Decameron and Novella and Petrach's French Translation along with Chaucer's The Clerk's Tale. Comparing them all to one another, but talking about how Griselda is part of each of the stories. This article is not about taking the praise away from one author or taking it away from another but more about giving everyone the credit that is truly due. When Petrarch translated his story he gave a Preface talking about Boccaccio and saying that it was his story, even though it was not word for word translation. The article debates that Chaucer did had access to the translation of Griselda which states that the write is Boccaccio, so he had access to knowing that the earlier version of Griselda was written in Boccaccio's Decameron. This is still all probable though. The way Chaucer words some one his stanzas, and some of the details in his tale are similar translations to that of Petrachs'. Some things that are in the translation are more emphasized but all of the stories do share the same "essential elements of narrative which illustrate the same conjunction of tender, maternal love and perfect submission"
Chaucer, Geoffrey "The Canterbury Tales" Eds. Kolve and Olson. New York City. Norton. 2005. 399-421. Print.
This chapter of the book, tells the very detailed version of Griselda. How Walter, the King, found his bride, how he decided to take the children and test her loyalty. That story is what is told. Not in poem form, but in detailed form. In the story that Chaucer tells, we get the facts but we still wonder things, this makes us not wonder, or not wonder as much. It explains why he did what he did. Why he told his wife he was going to kill the kids. Why we wanted to test her loyalty. This talks about the conversation they had before the King "kills" the daughter. You get to read their conversations, see deeper into their word and their thoughts. All the questions that I asked when reading it first were now answered. I do still think the King wanting to do this is a bit messed up but now I see the thoughts and reasoning behind it all.
Quotations:
She said: ‘Lord, all power is in your glance.
My child and I, with true obedience,
Are all yours, and you may save or kill
Your own things: work then as you will.
I chose this quote for the reason that it is where it all really starts. Griselda gives her husband the permission to do with whatever he feels necessary to their children. My question is no matter what anyone even your husband, the King does, why would you let someone kill your newborn child?! I understand that she wants to prove that she will do anything for her husband but letting her child be killed? Why would anyone allow that? You are supposed to protect your children not let them go get murdered by someone. You do learn that Griselda just wants to please her husband and wants to prove to him and the village that she is a loyal, worthy woman. I think it also shows how much women were pushovers during this time period. They would do whatever they were told and not make a fuss about it. They just wanted to be married and part of a family. And if the family they were married into was royalty, then it was even better. If this was happening today, in my generation, people would go crazy. Women are told to never give the men in their life everything. That you are equal to men. This is making it so she is not an equal to him, he is superior and can do anything he wants to prove is superiority.
Quote 2:
‘It is enough, Griselda mine,’ quoth he;
‘Be now no more aghast nor dismayed.
I have your faith and your benignity,
As well as ever woman’s was, assayed,
In high estate, and in poverty arrayed.
I know, dear wife, your steadfastness by this!’
And took her in his arms then, with a kiss.
And she for wonder could not seem to keep
Her mind upon the things that he now said.
She was as one who starts up out of sleep,
Till all her bewilderment she might shed.
‘Griselda, by God who died in our stead,
You are my wife, no other do I have,
God save my soul,’ quoth he, ‘nor ever had!
This your daughter, whom you have supposed
Would be my wife; the other, faithfully,
Shall be my heir, as I have pre-disposed;
And you have born him in your body, truly.
At Bologna have I kept them, secretly;
Take them again, for now you may believe
For neither of your children need you grieve!
This quote is the event that made it all make sense. You find out right here that Griseldas children were never dead. That her husband was just testing her the whole time. The question does come up again as to, WHO WOULD DO THIS. I don’t even believe that just because it is medieval times that that is why this was allowed, would someone let a king do this today? Why would he want to even make it seem like his kids were dead? Did he visit his children during the time that they were with someone else, being raised by someone else? What did the children think? They are all questions that need to be answered but never actually get answered. The King tells everyone that he is marrying this women, he tells his wife this. The "women" is his daughter. And the soon to be ex-wife helps the who we think is going to be the new wife get ready for this wedding. Why on Earth would you say you are marrying your daughter even if it was not going to happen. The thought of it is disgusting. Basically the king decides that after 12 years, 12 long years where their children have been raised by another person, that his wife is actually truly trustworthy. That she put up with him all of these years, and that she really loves him and wants to be with him. This took him 12 years to figure out. The King is one doubtful person.
Quote 3:
And if one spoke of virtuous beauty,
Then was she the fairest under the sun.
For she was brought up in true poverty;
No sinful thought through her head had run.
More often of the well than of the tun
She drank, and in virtue sought to please,
Knowing much labour, and no idle ease.
This quote should have made the King know that his wife would always be honest to him. She did not know anything else, which is why the King could do anything he wanted to her and she would put up with it and not say a word as to what he did. She did not have much growing up; she was kind and did not do wrong. She probably did not even know how to do wrong, she only knew good. She just wanted to be good to others. She "sought to please." Why would you think someone like her would ever be dishonest to you, would ever not be loyal? To me it is like the King wanted to see bad in her, he wanted to almost prove a point. There was nothing that led him to believe that she would ever be anything but loyal to him, but he still thought that someone would make her go off the edge. That she had to have a breaking point. And he tried, so very hard, to find that breaking point that it seemed that he thought she had. Griselda doesn't have a breaking point and would do anything for anyone but especially her husband. That was how she was raised and would never be anything different.
Checkpoint 3
Annotated bibliography 1:
Finnegan, Robert Emmett. “`She should have said no to Walter': Griselda's promise in The Clerk's Tale.” English Studies 75.4 (1994): 303-321. Academic Search Complete .Web. 2 Nov. 2014
When I first read this title I was intrigued, because I agreed with it. I did not like how she just gave into Walter. It actually kind of annoyed me. I think so far this has been my favorite thing to read/write about. Finnegan says that she should have never said yes to Walter. In the proposal to marry and with him taking the kids. Since Griselda let him take the kids and "kill" them she was an accomplice to homicide. Walter was too. She blessed them before they left to be "killed." She did that because she is a Christian women and she wanted them to be with God. Blessing someone means that they are protected by God.
Annotated Bibliography 2:
Schwebel, Leah.“Redressing Griselda: Restoration through Translation in the Clerk's Tale.” The Chaucer Review Vol 47.3 (2013): 275-299. Project Muse. Web. 2 Nov. 2014
This source talks about how Griselda is perceived in each story. Talking about how she is portrayed, and talked about. Also how even though we think Griselda is from the text the Decameron X.10, the meaning behind her and her story are way more than just that story. "in this reading of the Clerk's Tale, belie his engagement with a literary trajectory that extends even beyond the original author of Griselda to her ideological roots in Dante's philosophical discourses." How I thought of this was though the person and her name may be from another text, her personality and her actions may not be. Who she is in The Clerk's Tale is not exactly like she is in the other texts that she is written in. It takes text from from the Decameron and breaks them down. "Griselda is an ideal metaphor for the physical text's translation and transmission. As [End Page 280] Carolyn Dinshaw suggests, "translation takes place on a feminine body" in the story of Griselda; both literally and metaphorically, "it is a masculine hermeneutic gesture performed on the woman, on the text." Dinshaw refers to the preface of Saint Jerome's translation of Eusebius's Chronicle as an earlier example of this correlation between translation and the female body." This quote is just one where they take the story and find the meaning within.
From source: Raby, Michael.“The Clerk’s Tale and the Forces of Habit” The Chaucer Review, 47.3, (2013): 223-246.Project Muse.Web. 15 Oct. 2014
Annotated Bibliography 3
Ashton, Gail. "Patient Mimesis: Griselda and the "Clerk's Tale"" The Chaucer Review, 32.3, (1998):232-238. JSTOR, Web. 4 Nov. 2014
This article breaks down the story but in relation to Griselda. The words she said, and how well she followed them. When she was leaving and what she did by giving Walter back all of his clothes and only asking for a robe to cover her stomach and how well she complied with Walter. She was perfect, she did nothing to make Walter think wrongly of her. And yet he still tested her. Picking apart the scene of when Griselda must help the new bride get ready for the ceremony. She did not look as though she was higher than others, she became her old self in those moments. You couldn't even see anything different in her eyes. It is only then that Walter finally saw what he had wanted to always see. That he could do anything to her and she could always be calm and collected. The article talks about how behind all the silence was her pain. She may have not been allowed to show it, but it was there. The pain only changes when she sees that her children are still alive. She changes from this stone cold face that wasn't allowed to show emotion to anyone to crying because she is seeing her children again. She is allowed to return to her royal life again, and agrees to do so. "Griselda mimesis deflects Walters cruelty, and its means of survival in a world whose rules she knows inside out." (237)
Reflection
Scholars are talking a lot about where Griselda really came from. Was she from another story or was she something that Chaucer brought into this on his own. They take the texts Boccaccio's Decameron and Novella and Petrach's French Translation and compare them to The Clerk's Tale. They talk a lot about how she was treated by Walter and how she acted. Though she kept most of it inside. She acted very well from what we saw. Scholar’s biggest discussion that has been talked about in all of the texts I have used is how Griselda was treated. How because she said a vow she was not allowed to save her children. That how she acted is a lot different than how she felt. She was empty inside but she was not allowed to say anything, which is why when she got her children back she cried, they weren’t dead. She could hold and kiss them like she never had before. I think the biggest way scholars are going about the text is breaking it down by different words. They are trying to really get inside the heads of Griselda and Walter. Why would Griselda listen to all of this, she was okay with giving it up, because at the time she did not think there was anything else. They are taking things said in the text and finding the real meaning and then taking that meaning in relation to the text and how it changed the text. That is one of the ways Finnegan carries his article. He takes the meaning that she meant or Walter meant behind the words and breaks them apart towards the story, he also does this in relation to the Decameron and Petrach's French Translation.
Query
I am not really confused by anything on this text. I do feel like in everything I have read and all of the research that has been done, no one has actually answered the question as to why did Walter deceive Griselda like that. They analyze it and try to make sense of it, but there is not answer. I get that there may never be an answer because we cannot as Chaucer himself since he died in 1387. He did not even ever finish The Canterbury Tales, but I will always wonder. I do not think I ever considered what Griselda really did when she did not do anything when letting her baby go. She was being an accomplice which you can get sent to jail for. Though her children never actually died, it was the fact that she was allowing to let it happen. All because of a marriage vow that she took. And even after the deception was over she was okay with it, her kids were fine and she stayed with Walter. I do not get how she could be so stone cold when helping the new bride (her daughter, though she did not know it was) get ready for the wedding.
Checkpoint 4
Abstract:I know this is probably done wrong. I might have the right information but I know it is put in incorrectly. So please help me! Thank you! This is the question I want to answer, I know that the answer is what my thesis is. Why did she allow Walter to take her children. Or Why did no one question this? From what I have found, no one questioned Walter because he was King and Kings could do what they pleased. What most people thought of Kings was true, that in a way they could do no wrong. So by taking the children from her, he must have told people what he was doing, he did seem to make sure his children were okay, but he was trying to make her prove to him that she was loyal. In medieval times your parents usually picked who you married and the off chance that you picked they were usually part of your village. You always wed either your same status or higher. Walter chose Griselda though, but he was told that he must marry so he can have a heir. I think the article "Griselda's Pagan Virtue" makes a good argument and of how she had behaviors that were appropriate for that time. You were not supposed to question your husband. God is the one you are supposed to be submissive to, and Griselda gave a God-Like role to Walter, so she gave everything she had to him. She would have even died for him if that is what he had asked. Griselda did what she was supposed to because of her Christian values. Comparing a similar text to “The Clerk’s Tale” showed how similar stories are. Even with different religions the values are still similar. Griselda may have learned to love Walter, but it was never about that. It was about having an heir. But once she was married she took her vows and did what a wife was to do, and acted as one was. She was obedient towards her husband.
Annotated Bibliography 1: Peakman, Julie. “Poise and Passion in the Middle Ages” History Today 61.8 (2011): 36-41. Academic Search Complete. Web. 24 Nov. 2014 I needed to know more about the marriages of this time. Was what Walter did to Griselda that unusual? And from this article it does not seem like it was. Medieval lovers were not always kept together. Women usually ran the estates while the men went to fight or travel. Marriage during this time was not necessarily about love, but rather about the status you could attain. Some people were even wed as young as 4 or 6 years old. There were consequences still for those who fornicated and were found out before their marriage.
Annotated Bibliography 2:
Shutters, Lynn. "Griselda's Pagan Virture" Chaucer Review 44.1 (2009): 61-83. Academic Search Complete. Web. 24 Nov. 2014
When I found this article I did not know what to expect. Or what pagan virtue had to do with Griselda and what I was writing about her. But the article compares two stories, Chaucer's "The Clerk's Tale" and "Legend Of Good Women" and how though not pagan Griselda has Christian behaviors, but pagan ones also. The article argues that the reason Griselda put up with all the Walter did was because of her Christian virtues. But also not all religious readings of" The Clerk's Tale" are the same. They can focus on different things, like faith or biblical figures. "Yet, as Miller and other critics have suggested, the discomfort generated by the Clerk’s Tale is not due simply to modern sentiment. Griselda’s extreme willingness to fulfill Walter’s will, including consenting to the sacrifice of her own children, fits uncomfortably with late medieval ethics and religious morality."
Annotated Bibliography 3:
McCall, John P. "THE CLERK'S TALE AND THE THEME OF OBEDIENCE" Modern Language Quarterly 27.3 (1966): 260-270. Academic Search Complete. Web. 24 Nov. 2014
This article argues how Griselda is so obedient to her husband. She gave up her life, she gave up her kids. Though she is not the only obedient one, Walter is guilty of that too. He is told he needs to wed, and though he does not have to listen, he knows that he needs to, he could die anytime and needs an heir and the only way to do that is by having children. The article talks about how Griselda treats her children "Like Christ"(6) being that they are just innocent victims. But also that it is the "death of her own will". (6) Though death was not always the major focus, once she gives up her daughter that is what the story becomes. All of this happens because Walter ends up taking on a "God-like role"(4) to her. And in Christian faith you are supposed to give your all to God. She gives the greatest obedience when she gives up her son, which to her soon means that she will have to give up herself. To die for Walter. Being that that is the "Ultimate form of human obedience." (7) This article in the end sums it up as is: "The whole tradition of obedience declares that the free submission of one's will to a human superior is the normal means by which one submits to the will of God." (8)
Argument against scholarly article:
Ashton, Gail. "Patient Mimesis: Griselda and the "Clerk's Tale"" The Chaucer Review 32.3, (1998):232-238. JSTOR. Web. 4 Nov. 2014
I chose this article because I feel like it does not have a lot of substance that sets it apart. It has things that are good, but I read a lot of similar articles and this one was similar to the others. Others has things in them that distinguished them from the other articles that had very similar content and even similar sources. This was just an article I chose because I needed another for my annotated bibliography.I did not know what mimesis meant when I first stumbled upon this article, I thought it was going to be some fancy important word. When really it only means imitation of words or the real world. Which even as I read the article I did not really understand the title. And I feel like a title is usually supposed to explain something, maybe not in the beginning but once you are done with an article you usually realize what the title means. If I had not needed the article I would not have used it. I think the majority of my other sources I would use because they are even just a little bit different from one another. They talk about thing that are also different. Bringing in other religions or talking about family and lives during the middle ages. I think my main point is this article does not have much substance that is different from articles of the same topic. I want something that makes it stand out. I did not find that!
Topic for the semester: Chaucer, Clerks Tale!
Checkpoint 2:
Summary:
The Clerk’s Tale is a story about a King, who is told he must marry. He gets to choose his wife and he chooses a woman named Griselda, after getting permission from her father. After the two are wed soon after Griselda has a baby. This is where the story gets interesting. The King wants to make sure his wife is loyal so he puts her through tests. The King has someone come take the infant child and as Griselda is told, to kill the child. This is all to see if Griselda will still love him. 4 years later Griselda bears a son. When the boy is 2 years old the King thinks he needs to test his wife’s loyalty again. Someone comes to take their son and kill him too. Griselda still said nothing against her husband, the King.
When the daughter is 12 and the son 7 the King thinks it’s time to put his wife through one more test. He tells her that he is going to divorce her and marry someone else. Griselda, still obeying her now ex-husband, is sad but just walk away to go live with her father again. She does give a big loving speech to her husband as she is leaving though. When the wedding is coming he brings back his children, who are not dead, but doesn't tell anyone that they are his children. The King asks Griselda to help his new wife get ready for the ceremony; the new wife to be is her daughter, whom she doesn't recognize. When the King realizes that her could do anything to Griselda and she would take it with graciousness her confesses everything. He tells her that the “wife” is her daughter and the girl’s brother is her son. She was not even mad that it was all a hoax. They all live “happily ever after” and after the King dies, the son takes the throne.
Annotated Bibliography:
Raby, Michael.“The Clerk’s Tale and the Forces of Habit” The Chaucer Review, 47.3, (2013): 223-246.Project Muse.Web. 15 Oct. 2014This article talks about how the characters in The Clerk's Tale act and how this works with their character. The article states "The Clerk explores the ambivalence through the diptych of Griselda, who cultivates the habit of fortitude, and Walter, who finds himself entangled in cupidity strengthened by habit."(pg 6) The author is saying that Griselda is in pain when loosing her children but does not show it, to prove to her husband. Where because he is the King, her husband thinks that he can do whatever he wants with no consequences.
Griselda did not grow up in a place like the palace. But as she has been there she has seemed to have taken "the shape" of it. She is told to act a certain way, but if not for being there she may not do as she is told.
Finlayson, John. “Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Chaucer’s “Clerk’s Tale”" Studies in Philology 97.3 (2000): 255-75. JSTOR. Web. 15 Oct.2014
I chose this article because I wanted to read about Griselda. How she is actually from another author. But Chaucer did not even know that when writing about her, or that is what some people think, others think that he did know though. This article talks about Boccaccio's Decameron and Novella and Petrach's French Translation along with Chaucer's The Clerk's Tale. Comparing them all to one another, but talking about how Griselda is part of each of the stories. This article is not about taking the praise away from one author or taking it away from another but more about giving everyone the credit that is truly due. When Petrarch translated his story he gave a Preface talking about Boccaccio and saying that it was his story, even though it was not word for word translation. The article debates that Chaucer did had access to the translation of Griselda which states that the write is Boccaccio, so he had access to knowing that the earlier version of Griselda was written in Boccaccio's Decameron. This is still all probable though. The way Chaucer words some one his stanzas, and some of the details in his tale are similar translations to that of Petrachs'. Some things that are in the translation are more emphasized but all of the stories do share the same "essential elements of narrative which illustrate the same conjunction of tender, maternal love and perfect submission"
Chaucer, Geoffrey "The Canterbury Tales" Eds. Kolve and Olson. New York City. Norton. 2005. 399-421. Print.
This chapter of the book, tells the very detailed version of Griselda. How Walter, the King, found his bride, how he decided to take the children and test her loyalty. That story is what is told. Not in poem form, but in detailed form. In the story that Chaucer tells, we get the facts but we still wonder things, this makes us not wonder, or not wonder as much. It explains why he did what he did. Why he told his wife he was going to kill the kids. Why we wanted to test her loyalty. This talks about the conversation they had before the King "kills" the daughter. You get to read their conversations, see deeper into their word and their thoughts. All the questions that I asked when reading it first were now answered. I do still think the King wanting to do this is a bit messed up but now I see the thoughts and reasoning behind it all.
Quotations:
She said: ‘Lord, all power is in your glance.
My child and I, with true obedience,
Are all yours, and you may save or kill
Your own things: work then as you will.
I chose this quote for the reason that it is where it all really starts. Griselda gives her husband the permission to do with whatever he feels necessary to their children. My question is no matter what anyone even your husband, the King does, why would you let someone kill your newborn child?! I understand that she wants to prove that she will do anything for her husband but letting her child be killed? Why would anyone allow that? You are supposed to protect your children not let them go get murdered by someone. You do learn that Griselda just wants to please her husband and wants to prove to him and the village that she is a loyal, worthy woman. I think it also shows how much women were pushovers during this time period. They would do whatever they were told and not make a fuss about it. They just wanted to be married and part of a family. And if the family they were married into was royalty, then it was even better. If this was happening today, in my generation, people would go crazy. Women are told to never give the men in their life everything. That you are equal to men. This is making it so she is not an equal to him, he is superior and can do anything he wants to prove is superiority.
Quote 2:
‘It is enough, Griselda mine,’ quoth he;
‘Be now no more aghast nor dismayed.
I have your faith and your benignity,
As well as ever woman’s was, assayed,
In high estate, and in poverty arrayed.
I know, dear wife, your steadfastness by this!’
And took her in his arms then, with a kiss.
And she for wonder could not seem to keep
Her mind upon the things that he now said.
She was as one who starts up out of sleep,
Till all her bewilderment she might shed.
‘Griselda, by God who died in our stead,
You are my wife, no other do I have,
God save my soul,’ quoth he, ‘nor ever had!
This your daughter, whom you have supposed
Would be my wife; the other, faithfully,
Shall be my heir, as I have pre-disposed;
And you have born him in your body, truly.
At Bologna have I kept them, secretly;
Take them again, for now you may believe
For neither of your children need you grieve!
This quote is the event that made it all make sense. You find out right here that Griseldas children were never dead. That her husband was just testing her the whole time. The question does come up again as to, WHO WOULD DO THIS. I don’t even believe that just because it is medieval times that that is why this was allowed, would someone let a king do this today? Why would he want to even make it seem like his kids were dead? Did he visit his children during the time that they were with someone else, being raised by someone else? What did the children think? They are all questions that need to be answered but never actually get answered. The King tells everyone that he is marrying this women, he tells his wife this. The "women" is his daughter. And the soon to be ex-wife helps the who we think is going to be the new wife get ready for this wedding. Why on Earth would you say you are marrying your daughter even if it was not going to happen. The thought of it is disgusting. Basically the king decides that after 12 years, 12 long years where their children have been raised by another person, that his wife is actually truly trustworthy. That she put up with him all of these years, and that she really loves him and wants to be with him. This took him 12 years to figure out. The King is one doubtful person.
Quote 3:
And if one spoke of virtuous beauty,
Then was she the fairest under the sun.
For she was brought up in true poverty;
No sinful thought through her head had run.
More often of the well than of the tun
She drank, and in virtue sought to please,
Knowing much labour, and no idle ease.
This quote should have made the King know that his wife would always be honest to him. She did not know anything else, which is why the King could do anything he wanted to her and she would put up with it and not say a word as to what he did. She did not have much growing up; she was kind and did not do wrong. She probably did not even know how to do wrong, she only knew good. She just wanted to be good to others. She "sought to please." Why would you think someone like her would ever be dishonest to you, would ever not be loyal? To me it is like the King wanted to see bad in her, he wanted to almost prove a point. There was nothing that led him to believe that she would ever be anything but loyal to him, but he still thought that someone would make her go off the edge. That she had to have a breaking point. And he tried, so very hard, to find that breaking point that it seemed that he thought she had. Griselda doesn't have a breaking point and would do anything for anyone but especially her husband. That was how she was raised and would never be anything different.
Checkpoint 3
Annotated bibliography 1:
Finnegan, Robert Emmett. “`She should have said no to Walter': Griselda's promise in The Clerk's Tale.” English Studies 75.4 (1994): 303-321. Academic Search Complete .Web. 2 Nov. 2014When I first read this title I was intrigued, because I agreed with it. I did not like how she just gave into Walter. It actually kind of annoyed me. I think so far this has been my favorite thing to read/write about. Finnegan says that she should have never said yes to Walter. In the proposal to marry and with him taking the kids. Since Griselda let him take the kids and "kill" them she was an accomplice to homicide. Walter was too. She blessed them before they left to be "killed." She did that because she is a Christian women and she wanted them to be with God. Blessing someone means that they are protected by God.
Annotated Bibliography 2:
Schwebel, Leah.“Redressing Griselda: Restoration through Translation in the Clerk's Tale.” The Chaucer Review Vol 47.3 (2013): 275-299. Project Muse. Web. 2 Nov. 2014This source talks about how Griselda is perceived in each story. Talking about how she is portrayed, and talked about. Also how even though we think Griselda is from the text the Decameron X.10, the meaning behind her and her story are way more than just that story. "in this reading of the Clerk's Tale, belie his engagement with a literary trajectory that extends even beyond the original author of Griselda to her ideological roots in Dante's philosophical discourses." How I thought of this was though the person and her name may be from another text, her personality and her actions may not be. Who she is in The Clerk's Tale is not exactly like she is in the other texts that she is written in. It takes text from from the Decameron and breaks them down. "Griselda is an ideal metaphor for the physical text's translation and transmission. As [End Page 280] Carolyn Dinshaw suggests, "translation takes place on a feminine body" in the story of Griselda; both literally and metaphorically, "it is a masculine hermeneutic gesture performed on the woman, on the text." Dinshaw refers to the preface of Saint Jerome's translation of Eusebius's Chronicle as an earlier example of this correlation between translation and the female body." This quote is just one where they take the story and find the meaning within.
From source:
Raby, Michael.“The Clerk’s Tale and the Forces of Habit” The Chaucer Review, 47.3, (2013): 223-246.Project Muse.Web. 15 Oct. 2014
Annotated Bibliography 3
Ashton, Gail. "Patient Mimesis: Griselda and the "Clerk's Tale"" The Chaucer Review, 32.3, (1998):232-238. JSTOR, Web. 4 Nov. 2014
This article breaks down the story but in relation to Griselda. The words she said, and how well she followed them. When she was leaving and what she did by giving Walter back all of his clothes and only asking for a robe to cover her stomach and how well she complied with Walter. She was perfect, she did nothing to make Walter think wrongly of her. And yet he still tested her. Picking apart the scene of when Griselda must help the new bride get ready for the ceremony. She did not look as though she was higher than others, she became her old self in those moments. You couldn't even see anything different in her eyes. It is only then that Walter finally saw what he had wanted to always see. That he could do anything to her and she could always be calm and collected. The article talks about how behind all the silence was her pain. She may have not been allowed to show it, but it was there. The pain only changes when she sees that her children are still alive. She changes from this stone cold face that wasn't allowed to show emotion to anyone to crying because she is seeing her children again. She is allowed to return to her royal life again, and agrees to do so. "Griselda mimesis deflects Walters cruelty, and its means of survival in a world whose rules she knows inside out." (237)
Reflection
Scholars are talking a lot about where Griselda really came from. Was she from another story or was she something that Chaucer brought into this on his own. They take the texts Boccaccio's Decameron and Novella and Petrach's French Translation and compare them to The Clerk's Tale. They talk a lot about how she was treated by Walter and how she acted. Though she kept most of it inside. She acted very well from what we saw. Scholar’s biggest discussion that has been talked about in all of the texts I have used is how Griselda was treated. How because she said a vow she was not allowed to save her children. That how she acted is a lot different than how she felt. She was empty inside but she was not allowed to say anything, which is why when she got her children back she cried, they weren’t dead. She could hold and kiss them like she never had before. I think the biggest way scholars are going about the text is breaking it down by different words. They are trying to really get inside the heads of Griselda and Walter. Why would Griselda listen to all of this, she was okay with giving it up, because at the time she did not think there was anything else. They are taking things said in the text and finding the real meaning and then taking that meaning in relation to the text and how it changed the text. That is one of the ways Finnegan carries his article. He takes the meaning that she meant or Walter meant behind the words and breaks them apart towards the story, he also does this in relation to the Decameron and Petrach's French Translation.Query
I am not really confused by anything on this text. I do feel like in everything I have read and all of the research that has been done, no one has actually answered the question as to why did Walter deceive Griselda like that. They analyze it and try to make sense of it, but there is not answer. I get that there may never be an answer because we cannot as Chaucer himself since he died in 1387. He did not even ever finish The Canterbury Tales, but I will always wonder. I do not think I ever considered what Griselda really did when she did not do anything when letting her baby go. She was being an accomplice which you can get sent to jail for. Though her children never actually died, it was the fact that she was allowing to let it happen. All because of a marriage vow that she took. And even after the deception was over she was okay with it, her kids were fine and she stayed with Walter. I do not get how she could be so stone cold when helping the new bride (her daughter, though she did not know it was) get ready for the wedding.Checkpoint 4
Abstract: I know this is probably done wrong. I might have the right information but I know it is put in incorrectly. So please help me! Thank you!
This is the question I want to answer, I know that the answer is what my thesis is. Why did she allow Walter to take her children. Or Why did no one question this? From what I have found, no one questioned Walter because he was King and Kings could do what they pleased. What most people thought of Kings was true, that in a way they could do no wrong. So by taking the children from her, he must have told people what he was doing, he did seem to make sure his children were okay, but he was trying to make her prove to him that she was loyal. In medieval times your parents usually picked who you married and the off chance that you picked they were usually part of your village. You always wed either your same status or higher. Walter chose Griselda though, but he was told that he must marry so he can have a heir. I think the article "Griselda's Pagan Virtue" makes a good argument and of how she had behaviors that were appropriate for that time. You were not supposed to question your husband. God is the one you are supposed to be submissive to, and Griselda gave a God-Like role to Walter, so she gave everything she had to him. She would have even died for him if that is what he had asked. Griselda did what she was supposed to because of her Christian values. Comparing a similar text to “The Clerk’s Tale” showed how similar stories are. Even with different religions the values are still similar. Griselda may have learned to love Walter, but it was never about that. It was about having an heir. But once she was married she took her vows and did what a wife was to do, and acted as one was. She was obedient towards her husband.
Annotated Bibliography 1:
Peakman, Julie. “Poise and Passion in the Middle Ages” History Today 61.8 (2011): 36-41. Academic Search Complete. Web. 24 Nov. 2014
I needed to know more about the marriages of this time. Was what Walter did to Griselda that unusual? And from this article it does not seem like it was. Medieval lovers were not always kept together. Women usually ran the estates while the men went to fight or travel. Marriage during this time was not necessarily about love, but rather about the status you could attain. Some people were even wed as young as 4 or 6 years old. There were consequences still for those who fornicated and were found out before their marriage.
Annotated Bibliography 2:
Shutters, Lynn. "Griselda's Pagan Virture" Chaucer Review 44.1 (2009): 61-83. Academic Search Complete. Web. 24 Nov. 2014
When I found this article I did not know what to expect. Or what pagan virtue had to do with Griselda and what I was writing about her. But the article compares two stories, Chaucer's "The Clerk's Tale" and "Legend Of Good Women" and how though not pagan Griselda has Christian behaviors, but pagan ones also. The article argues that the reason Griselda put up with all the Walter did was because of her Christian virtues. But also not all religious readings of" The Clerk's Tale" are the same. They can focus on different things, like faith or biblical figures. "Yet, as Miller and other critics have suggested, the discomfort generated by the Clerk’s Tale is not due simply to modern sentiment. Griselda’s extreme willingness to fulfill Walter’s will, including consenting to the sacrifice of her own children, fits uncomfortably with late medieval ethics and religious morality."
Annotated Bibliography 3:
McCall, John P. "THE CLERK'S TALE AND THE THEME OF OBEDIENCE" Modern Language Quarterly 27.3 (1966): 260-270. Academic Search Complete. Web. 24 Nov. 2014
This article argues how Griselda is so obedient to her husband. She gave up her life, she gave up her kids. Though she is not the only obedient one, Walter is guilty of that too. He is told he needs to wed, and though he does not have to listen, he knows that he needs to, he could die anytime and needs an heir and the only way to do that is by having children. The article talks about how Griselda treats her children "Like Christ"(6) being that they are just innocent victims. But also that it is the "death of her own will". (6) Though death was not always the major focus, once she gives up her daughter that is what the story becomes. All of this happens because Walter ends up taking on a "God-like role"(4) to her. And in Christian faith you are supposed to give your all to God. She gives the greatest obedience when she gives up her son, which to her soon means that she will have to give up herself. To die for Walter. Being that that is the "Ultimate form of human obedience." (7) This article in the end sums it up as is: "The whole tradition of obedience declares that the free submission of one's will to a human superior is the normal means by which one submits to the will of God." (8)
Argument against scholarly article:
Ashton, Gail. "Patient Mimesis: Griselda and the "Clerk's Tale"" The Chaucer Review 32.3, (1998):232-238. JSTOR. Web. 4 Nov. 2014
I chose this article because I feel like it does not have a lot of substance that sets it apart. It has things that are good, but I read a lot of similar articles and this one was similar to the others. Others has things in them that distinguished them from the other articles that had very similar content and even similar sources. This was just an article I chose because I needed another for my annotated bibliography.I did not know what mimesis meant when I first stumbled upon this article, I thought it was going to be some fancy important word. When really it only means imitation of words or the real world. Which even as I read the article I did not really understand the title. And I feel like a title is usually supposed to explain something, maybe not in the beginning but once you are done with an article you usually realize what the title means. If I had not needed the article I would not have used it. I think the majority of my other sources I would use because they are even just a little bit different from one another. They talk about thing that are also different. Bringing in other religions or talking about family and lives during the middle ages. I think my main point is this article does not have much substance that is different from articles of the same topic. I want something that makes it stand out. I did not find that!